a question about evim

Bill Freeman f at ke1g.mv.com
Wed Jan 25 10:34:00 EST 2006


Zhao Peng writes:
 > I have a simple question about evim (Easy Vim).
 > 
 > Whenever I use evim to edit a file, say "abc.txt", a same-name file plus "~"
 > is always created. In this case, it will be "abc.txt~". It's a bit annoying
 > to me.
 >
 > Is there any way to avoid this? (Or it could casue some potential problems
 > if this behavior of evim is overridden.)

	I don't use evim, but this sounds like what emacs does.  These are
"backup" files.  (Actually, they're your original file, renamed.)  If your
machine (or the editor) crashes, or you suffer significant operator error,
you can at least get back to the previous version of the file.

	I know that emacs has a way to defeat this behavior, though I
don't remember what it is, since, thinking that turning off backups is
a bad idea, I didn't pay attention.  Probably evim has a way too.

	I still think that it's a bad idea.  I'd advise getting used
to and enjoying the existence of the backups.  Perhaps evim has a command
similar to the ~ command in emacs's dired mode, which marks all backup
files in the directory for deletion.  (Of course you can say "rm *~" in
the shell, but I'm always nervous that I'll hit return accidentally between
typing the * and typing the ~.)

 > Meanwhile, I'm trying to migrate to Vi or Gvim, or Emacs with Emacs Speak
 > Statistics (which some people say can highlight SAS syntax).

	As those who know me will expect, I recommend emacs.  emacs is
emacs, no matter what subsystems you eventually decide to
enable/install to use within it.  See the stuff from my MonadLUG
presentation last fall at: "http://www.mv.com/ipusers/ke1g/#lug".

							Bill



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